A quiet morning, the Cascade Bearers presented a starkly different task: defensive ritualistic magic. To create a ward against minor fey, they required three specific oils. I could see the ingenuity behind this experimental ritual but it escaped my understanding. It is very different from the kind of rituals we performed as the weavers. The Cascade Bearers value rare reagents as cornerstones of their ritual, possibly each a symbol of the ritual’s mandate: lucky bones, mashed caterpillars, and a specific mushroom named. It is a recipe to tell the First World: “Your tricks are not welcome here.” I am skeptical but we’ll gather the ingredients for them. The procurement was an adventure. Bones from the kitchen, a concession to death. Caterpillars from the forest, potential captured. The scarlet caps, however, were guarded. Climbing the great tree in lemur-form was a joy—a pure, physical truth of shape. But at the summit, we met the guardian: a sentient fungi-beast, a warden of rot and growth. As it assailed Ixy with terrifying force, I had to balance between the urgent scramble for mushrooms and the mortal peril of my companion. Tewondros’s brave intervention turned the tide, and the warden retreated into the deeper wood. Within its arboreal fortress, we found not only the caps but forgotten magical trinkets—payment for our trespass. Now, in Chizere’s workshop, the catfolk alchemist has rendered the bones into a foul sludge. The caterpillars and caps await their transformation. The process itself is a kind of anti-midwifery: taking ingredients of life, luck, and change and processing them into a barrier. I assist, but part of me, the part that now hums with fey potential, feels a quiet, instinctual revulsion. To create a ward against what I now harbor within… the irony is not lost on me. I think I shall distance myself briefly from the Fey Monarch for the rest of the week.